MEDICAL POT CRACKDOWN IS IKE'S FAULT

The federal government unleashed its goons again last week to take medicine
away from sick people, and you can blame Ike for it.

"Ike," for those of you who don't know who you like, was also known as
Dwight David Eisenhower. In 1953, he became the 34th president of the
United States.

One of Eisenhower's claims to fame, other than trimming a few strokes off
his golf score during his eight years in office, was sending the 101st
Airborne into Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 to enforce the racial
integration of Central High School.

There were a lot of good people in Little Rock in 1957, and a lot of not-so
good people, and both kinds warned us liberal Yankees that some day our
disregard for states' rights would come back to bite us in the butt.

States' rights was the concept that the people in any state can decide for
themselves what laws they want, without interference from the federal
government. It was the concept used to defend slavery before the War
Between the States, and in 1957 it was used to defend racial segregation.

We Yankees understood, of course, that the Arkie rednecks were just using
states' rights as an excuse to continue the despicable practice of keeping
black folks down. What we didn't understand was that they were also right.

They were not right in subjugating other human beings, of course, but they
were right in pointing out that we would all lose a significant amount of
freedom if we let the federal government take over state law enforcement.

The role of the federal government in local matters is a two-edged sword.
It is hard to believe now, but before the landmark case of Mapp vs. Ohio in
1961, the Supreme Court had ruled consistently that Constitutional
protections did not apply to the states.

In other words, before 1961 the local cops could bust into your house and
search it without a warrant, but federal agents couldn't. That didn't make
a lot of sense, but -- generally speaking -- that's the way the
Constitution was interpreted before the cops broke into Dolly Mapp's house
looking for a fugitive and found instead some porn and gambling devices
that violated local laws.

So most of us would agree there are definite benefits to having the feds
meddle in local affairs. Central High School in Little Rock is a proud,
proud place now, and with good reason. It is thoroughly integrated. If the
101st Airborne had not descended on Central High in 1957, we might still
have the racial inequities we had then.

Likewise, we all have Constitutional protections now that were denied us
before Mapp, before Gideon (right to a lawyer), before Miranda (right to
remain silent).

And yet nine states, including California, are denied the right to
determine for themselves what kind of medicine sick people should be
allowed to take to ease their pain.

Like marijuana, for instance.

Last week the head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, Asa
Hutchinson, was in town to proclaim the evils of marijuana and the virtue
of putting an end to "reefer madness." Hutchinson is the latest in a long
line of American drug czars, all of whom talked nonsense for a few years,
spent a terrible amount of money, and then claimed partial victory over
illegal drugs before turning over their throne to the next pretender.

By a remarkable coincidence, Hutchinson's visit was punctuated by raids by
federal goons on a couple of local medical marijuana outlets.

The people of California made it clear in 1996, by passing Proposition 215,
the medical marijuana initiative, that they thought it was OK -- and legal
- -- for folks with medical problems to smoke pot to ease their pain.

The federal government and the federal courts have taken a different point
of view, however, and seem to have decided that it's best for sick people
to suffer, probably as a way to develop character.

So we have this impasse, which might never have happened if Eisenhower
hadn't sent in the troops in 1957.

What goes around comes around, they say, and now the federal government
involves itself in almost every aspect of our lives, from how old one must
be to drink alcohol to what should be taught in local schools.

Federal control over local problems is a knotty issue. In my opinion, the
integration in Little Rock and throughout the country was positive, and
perhaps could not have been achieved any other way. It also is to our
benefit to have the Bill of Rights apply to the states.

However, the federal government really has no business telling states what
medicines they can or cannot use, nor should it be interfering in other
state issues, like Oregon's "Right to Die" law.

We need to exercise more care in what powers we give the federal
government, particularly now that we've had two administrations in a row --
Bill Clinton's and George Bush's -- that seem determined to increase
federal power as much as possible.

The rednecks in 1957 were wrong about integration but right about giving
the feds too much power. We should now be reining in that power, not
expanding it.